If you could start all over again; Investing VS doing it yourself

I would start by doing everything myself just to learn how things work. Once I got the hang of things, I would outsource with all the money that I'd start making.

Overall I would change three things:

1. I would target commercial topics and not just hobby topics like I did when I first started out.

2. I would build my list from the start.

3. I would HURRY up and build as much as possible in as little time as possible.

I would outsource everything.

I started off by doing everything myself. I learnt a ton of skills out of necessity and I would not change a thing. Nowadays it means I can easily whip together graphics, simple websites, make coding changes, all of that stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for outsourcing, but I see far too many marketers nowadays who can't do very simple things like put together a simple graphic or edit some simple html code and so they have to waste time waiting for others to complete even the simplest tasks for them.

Even if you want to outsource stuff I think it's first important for you to have a little grasp on what exactly it is you are outsourcing.

I would try and do a little of both - but Tim Ferris (4 hour workweek fame) is a big believer in VA's and outsourcing. In any game you are playing you need to be able to leverage time. Think about it if you could get 100 hours of productivity out of every week how much more could you do?

VA's & Outsourcing allows you to get 100 hours or even 1000's of hours of productivity done every week. Want to know how the rich get richer - they leverage other peoples time.

At some point you will need to be sure this is part of your business model otherwise you won't be able to scale your business or projects.

Wow good question.

I really believe knowing how to edit and set up a website is a skill I wouldn't do without. I think I'd want to have that skill if I were starting over again. I think I would still want to do a LOT of it myself because I think hiring and keeping good people is such a hard thing to do (for me anyway).

If I WERE to start over again, though, I'd start where I am now and keep FOCUS to follow through to profit. I'd build my list right from the start and hard. I'd focus on only a few marketing methods that work, instead of trying everything under the sun and make those work awesome. Then I'd hire people to help me once I had a system down.

Excellent question. Because of my personality style, I started out doing everything myself, and I mean everything. The fact of the matter is, you can't be good at everything.

If I started then knowing what I know now, I would still do a lot of things on my own so I could learn it, but I would do different things than what I did. I got bogged down in the technical areas of designing a website, looking for the ideal WP theme, learning how to code, etc. That stuff may have saved me some money, but it didn't make me any money, or nearly enough money for the time I invested in it.

I don't know if you're going to stick with Adsense or go into something else like PPC, Offline, affiliate sales, etc. and what your approach is, but I would forgo the technical, self-taught education and focus on: writing sales copy that works, learning how to do good keyword research (or buy a good piece of software that does a lot of the work), build a list, research the market, create personas to market to, PAID traffic sources (ranking a new site in the search engines is a whole different game than what it use to be), find good affiliate products to sell, as I'm making an outline of creating MY own product that's better than the affiliate products I'm pumping. You can be doing most of that while your site is being designed.

I got too enamored on learning HTML and building my own sites. Probably my biggest mistake.

Last thought--if you decide to buy some training courses for some of the skills you need, research, pick the best one that you can afford that you think will teach you what you want, and never look back. There will always be new stuff out there. Don't waste your time looking for the perfect WSO or training module. Decide, and never look back. In fact, I would go one further and suggest don't buy anything until you've mastered the last skill/training module/WSO you bought. Too many distracting, shiny objects...

Good luck, and congratulations as jumping in the game.

Everything by myself. I think I can do a better job that way. For some tasks, outsourcing makes a lot of sense, but that's what I still need to learn doing.

I would have started monetizing my knowledge sooner, instead of just monetizing the work output.

I also wouldn't have waited so long to hire a staff. Tried to do everything myself, "because I could" instead of just paying someone. It seemed to make sense when I had more time than money, but being on the flip side now I realize I could have been a lot further along years ago if my time hadn't been tied up doing all of the labor myself.

I agree with the other posters above. It's always better to learn the skills yourself before outsourcing the tasks to people who may not even know what they are doing.

I agree with the other Warriors that you might want to do the first time by yourself so that you will know the process and gain new experience. Thus when you start to outsource, you will be able to know the things that you need to look out for.

I will definitely set aside some budget for the marketing campaigns.

If you don't do the work yourself at first, you won't know how to optimize your workflow to achieve maximum efficiency.

But I guess it all depends if you have $$$ when you start.

So unless you have capital to invest in a professional that will take care of your business, do the start-up work yourself and put in the necessary effort.

If I have a chance to redo everything and do it from the start, I would try to do everything in a shortest amount of time. If possible, I would like to invest some bucks on buying an established website with the money I'd start making. I would love to join adsense as soon as possible, and building quality back link, not a crappy one.

Hey great topic,

I think there is a lot to be gained from doing it yourself at first. If you can learn to do it well yourself it will be easier to train your staff / VAs to do it well for you.

Since the OP didnt put a cap on how much to invest I would outsource and I could live with losing the money.. You have to weigh what your willing to regret vs. what you have to know on your own. Besides if I lose most of the investment I could keep a few pennies to invest in books to learn copy, traffic, and, technical stuff.

Definitely would have outsourced more...especially knowing what I know now (which is a heck of a lot more than I knew when I started).

In fact, we are now moving to outsource more and more in our business, already seeing the return.

Jeff

This is a great discussion.

I think one of the points touched on in a lot of the replies is the fact that we need to learn it first ourselves even if we intend to outsource it. I agree that is so important and I think the reason is that WE are the only one who will be invested in the business enough to figure out the BEST ways to build our own businesses.

I saw far too often when I did VA work clients coming to me and expecting ME to build their business. They had NO IDEA what would make them money and flat out told me they were going to rely on ME to help them with that. I mean it just seems to ridiculous to me that they thought they could pay me $25/hr and expect me to pinpoint with that the things they need to do (or get me to do) to be successful. Sure if they wanted to pay me for endless hours that got NO results (which they didn't want to do), because that's what happens when you run a business... you often have more losses than wins until you get it worked out and in a groove.

Once you've got your groove then it's time to find a few good people to help you maximize and leverage what you've got!

You need to have your processes in place before you outsource them.

A bad process, when outsourced, wastes both time and money.

A good process, when outsourced, creates more time and money.